The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1887-12-30
THE G~REATAUGUsT RAIN.
xhe Tnuoenae Quantity 81 VISITOR WAskca
FeiI 0vex : Wlae Area.

FELL Over . Wide Area
It i not easy for anybody to real
ize, or even to correctly imagine, the
vast amount Of water which IS pour
ed ont Of the sky ~ q great AUGUST
rain, like this one which during the
FIRST thzssor four days of the present
month has deluged SO many and SO
widely-separated parts Of ~ourcosntrv.
Tt is not easy to understand Ia tho
realizing sense, however fully wa
may comprehend the fact intellect-
nally, how so much solid water can bo
sHpended in the form Of invisible, va
por in the ain. True, ii ii no longer
invisible, when ii has been condensed
in the form of heavy rain clouds, but
it was ell there, Invisibly-Somewher0
in the wide realm Of air-hefore ID be-
came thus condensed. Take the
ending part Of chat great storm
tor an exampIe-What must have
Been the actual amount of water
that was poured down, from Chicago
to Maine, from Maryland and the
Ohio to the White Mountains2 It
rAined seemingly as never before, in
al those regions. Throughout the
greater part Of the Middle States it
made destructive river floods. In tina
region about Chicago il amountedtoa
precipitation Of about five and one
half inches. In Maryland ii was not
much less, and New York State re-
ceiyed it's share OF the general drench-
ing. Herein Southern New England the
downpour was such as was never ex-
ceeded-ifindeedi it was ever equaled. In
this immediate regiont the rainfall IN one
continuous rain, from Monday after
nooa to 3 O'Clock Tuesday morning,
amounted almost to 8 inches. The
great October rain, Of The LIST and Cd
of October, 1869, which such ruinOus
work throughout Connecticut (chieliy
by the immense precipitation on the
second day., did not exhibit sucha
steady and tremendous downpour as
that Of Tuesday, August a, 1885, be-
tween the hours of / and 3 O'Clock
in the morning. The volume Of tins
August rain Is shown in the flooded
streams, which everywfsere conTInua
to be flooded long after the usual tima
for rain floods to disappear. Tho
Connecticut rives itself has kept rising
for q day and q half after the storm,
the rain having added about six feet
to it's height. It was a heavy rain In
the White mountains, the gauge at this
Signal Service station on the summit
showing four and one-haf inches.
This great rain came inland from
the Gulf ofMexieo. Following the Mis-
sissippi valley northward, the storm
was central at Detroit. It extended
eastward all the way from the Missia-
sippi river to the Atlantic seaboard-
pouring as huge d food upon New
England as upon most D the great in
termediate breadth of country.
srFcsssSsaSS EsssGsrsS %lJ sSts
quantity 0fWater. Evenofthe amount
chat was poured out upon our own
little State, it is impossible to get any
adequate idea. III we were to iuIagIlle
tAhe 4nAasak C~nsanaeAiallt To he aarnrkaokN
ly nat, level surface, and the average
amount of rain for that one storm to
be not five, but not quite three inches
what, then, would be the aggregate
quantity OF water that was emptied.
from the clouds upon our area Of not
quite 5000 square miles? Who can
get any adequate conception 0f it2
Emptied in the same time into the
worlds greatest river, it would affect
the volume OF the Amazon. And this
for only one little spot in the area OF
the actual downpour. ~Connecticpt.
compared with the area, covers less re-
Lativa Apaea than dinner-piate i
big dinner-table. It was almost as If
the great lakes had burst their bounds
and simultaneously emptied them
selves upon the country On this side.